Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science; . ay reasonably suspect that while heneglected the metaphysician he saw the observer who loomed behindhim. In these days no one doubts that a naturalist, a physiologist, azoologist, and an experimental anatomist were all combined with themetaphysician in ^ Several points of apparent contact lictwccn the liead of the Academy of Athens andthat of the Milanese Academy must be put down rather to accident than intention. Thuswe find Ilato comparing the soul to the sound of a lyre, and asking whether, when thelyre is broken, the sound
Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science; . ay reasonably suspect that while heneglected the metaphysician he saw the observer who loomed behindhim. In these days no one doubts that a naturalist, a physiologist, azoologist, and an experimental anatomist were all combined with themetaphysician in ^ Several points of apparent contact lictwccn the liead of the Academy of Athens andthat of the Milanese Academy must be put down rather to accident than intention. Thuswe find Ilato comparing the soul to the sound of a lyre, and asking whether, when thelyre is broken, the sound dies with it. Leonardo, on his part, declares that the decom-position of the body does not involve that of the soul, and that the soul in the bodybehaves like the wind in an organ : if a pipe bursts, the action of the wMnd ceases. 2 MS. D, fol. 84, v ; MS. I, fol. 130, v» ; MS. K, fol. 52, v» ; MS. M, fol. 62, exaggerates when he says, Libero da ogni influsso Aristotelico o Ilatonico.{Saggio, ]). 7.) ^ Journal des Savants, 1S90, ]>. LUDOVICO IL MOKO, UEATKICE D ESTE ANU THEIK CHILDKEN AT THE FEET OF THE TO ZENALE, (The Breia, Milan.) VOL. II. G LEONARDOS PHILOSOPHY 43 Leonardos theories had a tendency towards transcendentalphilosophy, for he taught that our Imdics arc in subjection to heaven, andheaven in subjection to the spirit. It is difficult to evolve anything likea system from such a collection of lloaling and contradictory he not endeavour to define the spirit as a power mingledwith the body, because it, the power, is unable to govern itself l)y itselfor even to move in any way, and if you say that it docs govern itself,that is impossible in the midst of the elements, for if the s[)irit isan incorporeal quantity, such a quantity is called a vacuum, and avacuum docs not exist in nature. Suppose it to form, it would be atonce filled by the ruin of the element in which it was formed. In Leonardos science, says M. Séaille
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